Published 1:00 am, Friday, June 9, 2006

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - The reputed boss of the Genovese crime family, a former Waterbury mayor and the owner of a Danbury trash hauling business were among 29 people charged Friday in a federal investigation into the mob's influence over the region's trash hauling industry.

Companies owned by
James Galante
paid a "mob tax" to alleged organized crime boss Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello as part of a property rights scheme in which trash haulers carved out routes for each other and agreed not to poach customers, according to a 117-page indictment.

"One of the effects of the property rights system has been to stifle competition by preventing small independent companies from competing," the indictment alleges.

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Federal authorities were discussing plans Friday to take over operations at Galante's trash hauling businesses, which handle garbage pickup for thousands of residents and businesses in about 20 southwest Connecticut towns, according to an attorney for the companies.

Galante and several employees of his companies were arrested by federal agents, lawyers said. Ianniello was arrested at his Long Island, N.Y., home, which was raided last summer, according to his lawyer,
Jay Goldberg
.

Former Waterbury Mayor
Joseph Santopietro
was also due in court Friday morning after being charged with racketeering in the indictment, which also named seven companies.

Santopietro worked as a consultant for Galante's companies. In an interview a few months ago said he was not a target of the investigation and had not hired a lawyer. In 1992, while he was mayor, Santopietro was arrested during an investigation of bribery and kickbacks. He served more than six years in prison and was released in December 1999.

The indictment also names state
Trooper Paul Galietti
, who is charged with two counts of misusing state computer systems to run criminal background checks. Galietti has been suspended since November, when allegations surfaced that he provided motor vehicle records to one of Galante's companies,
Automated Waste Disposal
Inc. in Danbury.

More than a dozen defense attorneys milled about a New Haven federal courtroom Friday morning reading the indictment. Prosecutors expected to hold bond hearings for key figures throughout the day.

Galante was scheduled to appear first and prosecutors said they would seek to have him held without bond.

He was arrested at Automated Waste Disposal, according to his attorney,
Hugh Keefe
.

H. James Pickerstein
, an attorney for Galante's businesses, confirmed that several employees were also arrested along with him.

Prosecutors allege in the indictment that Galante paid Ianniello $200,000 in 2001, then $30,000 every three months until 2005.

Prosecutors allege that a property rights system has been in effect in Connecticut since the mid-1980s. Companies that challenge it, they say, have had their drivers assaulted and trucks vandalized and have been locked out of transfer stations.

Galante owns or has ties to at least 25 of about 60 companies under scrutiny in the case. His attorneys say he is an honest businessman known for his civic work in Danbury. He also owns the Danbury Trashers, a minor league hockey team in the
United Hockey League
. The team is named as a defendant in the case.

Galante has publicly been under scrutiny since the FBI raided his offices last summer, seizing truckloads of documents from his companies. Agents returned to the office Tuesday, seizing a small amount of cash and business records as the grand jury worked in New Haven.

Authorities were moving Friday to seize Galante's fleet of race cars.

Ianniello, who was named but not charged in a 1995 New York property rights indictment, is free on bail while awaiting trial on unrelated charges in New York, where prosecutors say that under Ianniello's leadership, the Genovese family infiltrated a bus driver's union. He has pleaded not guilty and denied allegations that he's a mob boss.